soju party including me and lots of dudes

this blog will be short and sweet because i'm at work. i have plenty of other things to catch up on, so i will focus on last night in particular.

a friend of a friend told me he was going drinking, so i invited myself along. it was one of his friend's birthday and they were going to a traditional soju bar. so i met chang hun in kang de hu mun (university area) not really knowing what we were doing, just that i was meeting him. so we walk into this soju bar that has graffiti all over the walls and rows and rows of picnic tables to sit at--a very cool and dirty atmosphere. there were at least 10 guys at this table and i was the only girl. but when they all saw me, i felt like a movie star. everyone going "oh!" really surprised. i think chang hun told them he was bringing an american, but maybe they didn't think i would be as tall as i was. so instead of sitting down next to the one guy i know, they all have me sit down in the middle of them. commence to taking many many shots of soju, something i don't normally do. i felt sort of bad because when the guy whose birthday it was showed up, nobody was really paying any attention to him, they were all vying for my attention and asking me questions like "so what do you think about korean men?" "why aren't you married?" "do you have many boyfriends?" it was really really funny. they were also constantly asking me "do you feel comfortable? we want you to feel comfortable around us." "do you have many korean friends? we want to be your korean friends." they were all making fun of each other too: "this guy doesn't have any eyebrows." "this guy looks like a filipino monkey."

the whole situation was so unique, not only because i'm in south korea, but because in the u.s. i would never feel comfortable walking into a bar and sitting down with 10 complete male strangers. and chang hun kept asking me the whole time "are you okay?" and i was okay. i tried to convey that i was better than okay, so i hope that was understood.

birthday boy was a big hand talker. so his friends made fun of him for that. but he taught me the proper way to pour and receive soju.

when i went home, i had all these guys asking for my phone number and offering to "help me get home." i explained that i had taken taxis home by myself many times. but i got several phone calls and text messages making sure i was okay.

anyhoo, that's last night in brief. i will expound later with more details. just needed to get it down while it was fresh in my mind.